Chapter 7
1034 Words
Chapter 7
“I can find the front door on my own.” Alice wished she had on much more sophisticated clothes. What had been comfortable at one in the morning looked very out of place at one in the afternoon in the corridors of the White House.
“How?” Daniel guided her down a second flight of stairs that opened into a grand foyer. She’d seen this staircase, or a good replica, in far too many movies. The Grand Staircase was just that. A sweeping majesty trod by Annette Bening in a killer blue gown and great shoes. And now the real set of stairs bore Dr. Alice Thompson in garishly green sneakers and dirty corduroys.
Though she did have a killer handsome guy by her side, so it wasn’t a complete loss. At least until she turned the corner of the stair. A long marble hall spread before them. A sea of gold-trimmed red carpet flowed down the marbled length as if it would never end. It was staggering, sunlight pouring in from tall windows made the room glow.
The room itself so dazzled the mind that it took her a moment to focus on the hoard of people at the far end of the hallway. Dozens and dozens of people, with a watchful phalanx of security guards, were stringing garlands, erecting and decorating trees, hanging dazzlingly intricate paper snowflakes several feet across from the ceiling using a high-lift platform.
“Christmas is here.” Her voice had a sense of breathy wonder as if she were witnessing a modern miracle.
Daniel paused and looked out with her. “Four hundred volunteers. It will take them the better part of a day even at the rate they’re moving. By this evening there will be musicians in the lobby, the whole bit.”
He led her around the turn in the staircase as she rubbernecked like any tourist trying to take it all in. Right until she came face-to-face with Franklin D. Roosevelt, seated ever so grandly in a painted portrait almost as tall as she was.
It took her a moment to recover. Daniel almost had her turned toward the next set of descending stairs when her head cleared enough to spot the towering double doors. At the midpoint of the marbled foyer sufficiently spacious to hold a ballroom dance, the decorators hadn’t reached them yet.
“Those are doors,” she pointed. “And it is bright and sunny on the other side of them. They lead outside. Those,” she paused for emphasis, “are doors.”
“They are.” He continued to coax her toward the set of descending stairs, ignoring her discovery.
“Well, I found them.” She emphasized the “I” strongly and imagined herself discovering the North Pole.
“You did.” He started down the next flight of steps and she was half tempted to call his bluff and leave through the lately-discovered doors. She’d need to think up what to name them if she were going to publish her findings.
“Do you know what’s on the other side of those doors?” Daniel asked from where he’d paused three steps below her.
Alice wasn’t really sure. Other than the now-famous Doors of Alice discovered by one Dr. Thompson while journeying through new and definitely strange lands, White House cartography wasn’t exactly her thing. She could name the leaders of the hundred-and-ninety-three U.N. member nations and the three that weren’t, draw a to-scale map of southwest Asia including every city with a population over twenty thousand and most of the clandestine weapon supply routes, on-or-off road. But what lay beyond those doors, not so much.
“What?” she demanded in a voice that echoed surprisingly in the long stairwell and attracted the attention of some of the closer decorators.
“Half of the capital’s press corps is through those doors. We’ve had the new Egyptian President visiting this morning and he and President Matthews are finishing a photo op out on the North Portico at the moment. That’s why we held back the decorating until after his visit.”
“Oh. Right, he’s a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood. Wouldn’t be right.” Alice tried to think of a good comeback, but it failed aborning. Maybe for the moment she’d leave herself in Daniel’s hands and not explore the Famous Alice Doors. She followed him down the stairs and through the vaulted underground corridor they’d now entered, not one bit less grand than the main hallway upstairs, if not quite so flashy. No decorations here. At least not yet.
“Where did you get such nice hands?” Where did she get such a stupid question? But it was out there and now she’d have to live with it.
He held one up as if to inspect it as they once again passed through the Palm Room and along the West Colonnade. The decorators had definitely been here. Garlands of green pine spiraled up each of the columns, broad red ribbons wrapped between.
“My dad. I think I can blame my hands on him.”
“Daniel Drake Darlington II?”
“What? No, that was Dad’s idea of a joke, he’s Johnny by the way. He thought it was funny. He’d found two Daniel Drakes in the family tree. One, an authentic Brit turned pioneer, who stumbled into the Tennessee wilderness in the early 1700s and never left. The second, a lieutenant in the Civil War, fought for the South. Died young and stupid, but left behind a pregnant farmer’s wife who ran the place with an iron fist. Dad felt one a century was a good mark and realized that he’d better use the name in a hurry if he wanted to get it done in the 1900s. He added the ‘third’ just to be funny, I guess.”
“So, you’re a slaver.”
“Born and bred.”
Alice followed him past another set of Marines who opened yet another set of doors for them before they could get there.
“Should I worry?”
“Nah. You’re not my type.” His voice was pure tease.
“You’re not mine either.” She shot back. But it was wrong, on both sides. An awkward silence fell for a moment. She glanced sideways at him as they stepped past a pair of Marines and through a door. Then she faced forward and she squeaked.
It was all Alice could do.
She tried to speak, but all she could emit was another, equally ridiculous, high-pitched squeak.
A quick turn to retreat back out the door she’d just come in proved fruitless. The Marines had already closed it behind her. She turned reluctantly back to face the room. It was huge. Magnificently furnished. Washington, Lincoln, and JFK stared down at her from the wall. She couldn’t say walls, because there was only one wall.
The room was oval.
- Writer
